Oh gosh, I bet she did. It would be so hard to bring myself to cut that. My Mum was given a crinoline lady cake by my MIL, who used to be quite a good cake decorator, and never brought herself to cut it. It was on display for about 6 months until it literally went mouldy It was a fruit cake of course.
..the end result looks lovely...but they really are a pain to make especially as these ones were smaller than usual
...Mum-in-law loved it..